Tag Archives: Baked Yeast Donuts

I’ve been enjoying Sally’s Baking Addiction blog – there are lots of good recipes on there and they’re all very easy. Nice! I made Sally’s Peanut Butter Frosting for some chocolate cupcakes for my husband’s birthday. Sooooo good.

She has a few recipes for Baked Donuts! I was like, Baked Donuts? I’ve stayed away from donuts (actually in Canada we call them doughnuts) since I found out the calorie count from one french cruller. It’s been sad; donuts and baked goods are my favourite things. Once in a while I’ll have a donut hole but that’s it. So the idea of donuts that are baked was a revelation and I immediately got some baked donut pans and set to work:

I made some vanilla donuts with strawberry frosting from Sally’s blog – I found that the donuts essentially tasted like muffins in a ring shape and the recipe was very muffin-y (dry ingredients; wet ingredients, oil-based, etc.) so there’s no surprise there. The icing was quite nice; the girls said the doughnuts looked like big doughnut strawberry Pocky and kind of tasted like it too.

Next I tried chocolate donuts from the Bakerita blog, another fun baking site. These were wonderful and very quick to make:

Spray 2 doughnut pans with nonstick spray. In the bowl of a food processor put the flour, cocoa, baking powder and soda, salt, sugar, and nutmeg. Pulse to combine. Add the butter and pulse until crumbly. Turn out into a medium bowl.

Combine the buttermilk, vanilla, and egg. Add to the flour mixture and stir until almost but not quite combined. Spoon into a Ziploc bag or pastry bag (this process will finish the mixing) and pipe into the doughnut forms.

Bake for about 8 minutes or until doughnuts spring back when touched (toothpick test is also a good indicator). Let cool on wire rack before glazing.

The first time I made these I used Bakerita’s chocolate glaze – it’s delicious but not really doughnut glaze, it’s more of a ganache. Nothing wrong with that but I wanted something more like glaze that hardens a bit. The second time I used Alton Brown’s Chocolate Doughnut Glaze and it was more like what I had in mind.

Bakerita’s Chocolate Glaze (ganache type)

3/4 c. chocolate chips

2 t. butter

1 T. light corn syrup

1/4 t. vanilla

2 T. milk

In a microwave proof bowl, combine all ingredients except the vanilla. Melt for 30 seconds in the microwave then stir. I let this sit for a bit then stirred; it didn’t need additional microwaving. Add vanilla.

Alton Brown’s Chocolate Doughnut Glaze (I halved the recipe and made a few changes)

1/4 c. butter

2T. milk

2 t. light corn syrup

1 t. vanilla

2 oz chocolate chips

1 1/2 c. icing sugar

Combine butter, milk, corn syrup and vanilla in a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat until butter is melted. Remove from heat and whisk in chocolate until melted. Add icing sugar and whisk until smooth. This icing seized up on me and I had to add a tablespoon of hot water and whisk until it was smooth and glossy again.

With this glaze, you also have to work quickly and at one point I had to reheat the icing in the microwave. But it makes a more doughnut-shop type of glaze.

Two sets of doughnuts do not a marathon make. But wait for it:

While trolling the Internet for baked doughnut recipes, I found this recipe for Baked Yeast Doughnuts. I love yeast-based doughnuts and I immediately brought down my bread machine from its home on top of the fridge.

Baked Yeast Doughnuts

If you are using a bread machine, add these ingredients in the order they’re listed:

1 c. milk, heated for about 1 min in the microwave

1/4 c. warm water

2 t. butter, melted

2/3 c sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature and beaten lightly

5 c. bread or all-purpose flour

1/2 t. salt

1/4 t. nutmeg

3 t. instant yeast

Set the machine for dough and wait. Make some Chocolate Doughnuts, there’s lots of time. When it’s done, pry it out of the machine, knock down and continue.

(If you are not using a bread machine, combine the milk, water, yeast, butter, sugar, eggs, salt and nutmeg in a large bowl. Add the flour, 1 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. By the last addition you’ll need to knead the dough until springy and elastic and not a shaggy sticky mess. Add flour as needed but sparingly; too much flour will make the dough tough. It should make a nice smooth ball but by now you are probably wishing you’d got a bread machine. Roll in oil or flour and let rise in a bowl covered with a piece of waxed paper and a tea towel, in a warm place, for about 2 hours or until doubled in size. Knock down and continue.)

Roll dough out to about 1/2 inch thick on a lightly floured surface. If you have a doughnut cutter, cut out doughnuts and place on a parchment-lined half-sheet pan. I don’t have a doughnut cutter, surprise, so I used a large biscuit cutter and a pop bottle rim for the inside holes. The girls quickly discovered that you can then shoot the bits of dough from the bottle by squeezing it and blowing them across the counter. Fun times! Cover with waxed paper and a tea towel and let rise for approximately 1 hour.

Oven: 375. Bake for about 8-10 minutes or until the bottoms are just golden. They will not get brown on top (I’m working on this). Remove from the oven and let cool 1-2 minutes.

Cinnamon Topping

1/2 c. melted butter

1 1/2 c. granulated sugar

1 T. cinnamon

Combine sugar and cinnamon. Dip doughnuts in butter, then in cinnamon-sugar mixture and place on rack set over waxed paper.

I made a donut glaze (Alton Brown again) and dipped half the doughnuts in that. But the cinnamon-sugar coating was better. My husband had the last one two days later and remarked that it was just like sweet bread. They were better the day they were made and even if they were more like sweet bread than like doughnuts, they were mighty fine anyway.

Sally’s recipe made about 6 donuts. The Chocolate Doughnut recipe made 12. The Yeast Doughnut recipe made 24. Needless to say, the girls and I did not eat 42 doughnuts. We tried one of each, kept a few for our breakfast next day (and one for Daddy who was opening a restaurant in Toronto even though he wouldn’t be home for another day or so) and took the rest down to the staff at Hapa Kits: